January 1, 2006 -- EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is a Q&A with Aaron J. Klein, the author of Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel's Deadly Response (Random House, 272 pages, $24.95), a fact-based account of the terrorist attack on the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games and the subsequent 30-year campaign by Israel to avenge those deaths. Klein, Time's military and intelligence affairs correspondent in Israel, offers his perspective on the efficacy of targeted killing, the lessons to be learned from Israel's experience fighting terror and the similarities with 9/11.

QUESTION: Does your book have lessons for those concerned with terrorism and counterterrorism today?

Answer: From a strictly strategic point of view, you have to be very careful in terms of choosing targets. The Israelis didn't always get the right person. Targeted killing is a tool, but every intelligence organization would prefer first to interrogate the person they have targeted, rather than just kill him.

The historical lesson of the Munich attacks is that any country that thinks it can avoid being a target for terrorism can't really. At the time of the Munich attack, the Europeans didn't want to get involved. They let the Palestinians use Europe as a base [for their terror campaign] and then let the Israelis operate against the Palestinians. Look at the Germans [for example], they let the Munich killers go. They thought they could get rid of the problem, but all they showed was that they were weak.

Another lesson is that one country cannot do it by itself. Israeli operations against Palestinians did lessen the amount of terror coming from Europe, but if it had been a comprehensive campaign [with the involvement of the European authorities], it wouldn't have taken so long.

I quote Lt. Col. Mor, who was the head of Israel's counterterrorism unit of military intelligence after Munich. He went around Europe in the '70s trying to explain the Palestinian terrorism problem, but no one wanted to hear it. Today, the Europeans are very worried about terrorism.

Q: One of the reasons you give for the Israelis' strategy [of targeted killing] is that they wanted the terrorists to spend time worrying about their own safety so they couldn't fully concentrate on planning attacks against Israel. Do you think that part of the strategy was a success? Is it different now?

A: In some cases it worked, and then in some periods it was worse. The Israelis were trying to create deterrence, but after 30 years of the campaign, we got suicide bombers.

How much is revenge worth in terms of the Americans trying to kill Osama bin Laden? He's been hunted for the last four years. He's running from one cave to another, so his ability to act is minor. But then again, no one needs him anymore. So do you need to kill him? Well, yes, but more for symbolic reasons, because he is a symbol for both sides.

Q: Was Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's response to the second Palestinian Intifada — targeted attacks against Hamas — successful? Was it based on the response to Munich?

A: Counterterrorism campaigns in which targeted killing is a major tool continue to this day. The Israelis see it as an effective tool that started to work after Munich. In an interview with Aharon Yariv in 1973, upon his retirement as head of Israeli military intelligence, there had already been 10 assassinations [since Munich], and he said "it's working."

When they killed terrorist mastermind Wadi Hadad (March 30, 1978), there were no more airplane hijackings.

When they killed Fathi Shkaki, the head of Islamic Jihad, on Oct. 26, 1995, the organization collapsed. It took them years for them to rebuild. They were neutralized for three years.

But, there will be no victory over terror by targeted killing alone. You need to change the way people think. Targeted killing does buy you time. And Israel had no other option because they were working alone.

Q: Are there similarities between the Munich attacks and 9/11?

A: The American trauma after 9/11 is similar to the Israeli trauma after Munich. Before 9/11, no one was willing to consider targeted killing, and the attacks were also a trauma to the U.S. security establishment. Their response was to change laws and the intelligence system, just like the Israelis did after Munich.